Thoses in ending, or ended marriages: Were you ever happilly married - in truth?

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Invitation to share, a conversation point perhaps.

I'm doing some reflecting and pondering this morning.  I finally have a quiet moment.

I jotted this question down in my journal.
"Did you ever feel like you were happily married?

And for me, I think the deeply honest answer is no.  Although I had some good, and great things happen, and I was happy at times in life, there was always a deeply rooted emptiness inside the marriage.  Maybe a haunting feeling that all was not well, that the superficial good times were just that.  Deep inside my wife there is an ever-present emptiness.  I can describe now as though she doesn't really have a self, a true personality.  She's acted nice, and not nice, she's acted happy and not happy, but, it really feels like there is nothing, and never was something that I could really attach to, really trust, really love.  And so, I think I never have been happily married, nor really genuinely married. If that makes sense. 

In spite of being married now for over 22 years, I think I'm probably a rare case that can say I've regretted marriage form the start.  I remember even on the second day of marriage feeling a deep dismay in my gut.  What had I done?

That never got solved, and never went away.  I ignored it a lot.  I got along with other things.  I was really enraptured by having kids - being dad has been my purpose and great joy in life.

I can't say I started happy and watched things decline. 

If you are approaching the end of your marriage, or have ended it and look back, were you ever really happy, or did you sense something wrong that stuck with you?

[SamwizeGamgee]

Invitation to share, a conversation point perhaps.

I'm doing some reflecting and pondering this morning.  I finally have a quiet moment.

I jotted this question down in my journal.
"Did you ever feel like you were happily married?

And for me, I think the deeply honest answer is no.  Although I had some good, and great things happen, and I was happy at times in life, there was always a deeply rooted emptiness inside the marriage.  Maybe a haunting feeling that all was not well, that the superficial good times were just that.  Deep inside my wife there is an ever-present emptiness.  I can describe now as though she doesn't really have a self, a true personality.  She's acted nice, and not nice, she's acted happy and not happy, but, it really feels like there is nothing, and never was something that I could really attach to, really trust, really love.  And so, I think I never have been happily married, nor really genuinely married. If that makes sense. 

In spite of being married now for over 22 years, I think I'm probably a rare case that can say I've regretted marriage form the start.  I remember even on the second day of marriage feeling a deep dismay in my gut.  What had I done?

That never got solved, and never went away.  I ignored it a lot.  I got along with other things.  I was really enraptured by having kids - being dad has been my purpose and great joy in life.

I can't say I started happy and watched things decline. 

If you are approaching the end of your marriage, or have ended it and look back, were you ever really happy, or did you sense something wrong that stuck with you?

[Newyoungfather]

Hello SamwizeGamgee,
I was never married to my exbpd however I do have a child with her.  I was never truly happy in the relationship, I always had a fake smile on for friends and family.  There was tons of abuse and I finally escape.  Looking back I knew deep down that there was something off but I continued the relationship hoping it would get better.  I actually never met someone who was happy in their relationship/marriage with their exbpd/npd.

[MeandThee29]

Maybe because I'm nearly on the other side?

I would say that there was happiness at times, more earlier than later. I've never been one for black-and-white thinking though. I focus on that in my memories now and don't ruminate on the bad times. As they say, rumination is ruination. But there was also over-the-top ugliness and aspects of abuse in the later end, and I was horribly lonely at times. During separation he once asked if I regretted marrying him, and I have to say that I made that choice freely and in good faith.

But it's completely over. A friend observed that many divorces are filled with scrapes and bruises, and others become an emotional gunfight. Mine was the later. Both lawyers called the case "unprecedented and memorable." My lawyer told me at signing that both he and the opposing lawyer appreciated that I conducted myself well. In contrast, LOL. Of course the only way to come out of that is to close the chapter and move forward.

Many of my friends have wonderful, grace-filled, respectful marriages. And I'm happy for them and love watching them. I didn't get that, but I have a lot of love in my life right now. Not romantic, but I'm thankful for what I have.

Last night I went out with friends, and we ended up at the restaurant where I last ate with him and saw him face-to-face. I've gotten take-out from there but haven't been in the dining room since. But we had a caring, laugh-filled night. I wasn't triggered at all and smiled this morning, thinking about that meal. I have new memories and new friends. Life is good.

[Cat Familiar]

In my first marriage to a pwBPD, I remember feeling trapped from the outset. He was so insistent on being part of my life, I assumed this was my fate and I tried to make the best of it. I was never in love with him, but I tried to love him.

Now in my second marriage to a pwBPD, I was madly in love with him from the beginning. This lasted a couple of years, until the BPD traits came to the forefront and I began to wonder what happened to that wonderful man I fell in love with.

At this point, many years later, we get along really well. I've learned how to deal with the "third person" in the marriage--the BPD, and I do love the man I married, but perhaps I cannot say that I'm in love with him.

[sweetheart]

Hi, SWG

I am separated from my dbpdh, he is currently detained in a secure mental health facility. It became impossible as so many of us know to stay living together such was the chaos and devastation brought into our family by this mental illness. my marriage has ended in what I understood my marriage was going to be. My dbpdh is in my life and I will always be so. We have a son together.

My answer to your question was I ever really happily married, is easy for me, yes I absolutely was, and happy for a very considerable amount of time. And even when things became awful, there were still moments of happiness that I can look back on with really fond memories. Bizarrely every Christmas apart from one was lovely. It was as though my h could suspend his illness for a day or two and come back enough emotionally for a couple days.

I always knew my h had a mental illness, I knew what it was and meant, what I didn’t know is just how it would go on to impact on our relationship and our family. I was happy for perhaps 7 of our fourteen years, and then spent a lot of years, worried and confused and overwhelmed.

Even though I now know the happiness I felt early on was perhaps somehow flawed and characteristic of the way this illness plays out in intimate relationships, I was still happy. When I look back the happiness and love I felt is not tainted by how ill my husband became or the things he did whilst dysregulated. And we have our beautiful son together, and my h to the very best of his ability has tried hard to shield our son from his illness. It is of course complicated and complex, but their relationship is for the most part intact with lots of love and happiness there too.

I don’t want to mislead anyone into thinking I existed in some fairytale, I didn’t, long years of my marriage were more terrible than anything I could ever have imagined. However there was an absence of any personal violence, my h’s illness was more about him and his dysregulations. How I chose to deal with it was in part thanks to me finding this forum and my professional background and understanding of mental illness. Couldn’t save my marriage, and for that I will always be so sad, but I grieved for the loss of my marriage whilst I was still in it and my h’s illness ravaged him.

I remain happy, I am happy that he is currently safe, and we are in contact in a way that is manageable. I am happy that I met him and shared a life with him good and bad. Until I meant him I had never wanted children, so I have real joy at having had our son quite late in life.

The 14 yrs we had were absolutely the best and the worst of my life to date. There has been absolutely no middle ground. I think perhaps the middle ground will be found living separately where the illness isn’t a part of my life anymore.

I still love my husband as much as I always did, but I know we need to be separate. I am able to feel compassion now for a man so tortured and tormented by his illness, whereas before I was just burnt out and terribly sad much of the time in the last few years. Reactive and somewhat contemptuous at times. Up close and personal with this illness it easy to loose ones’-self. X

[ForeverDad]

The first several years?  Yes, we were best friends at first.  My now-ex did have periodic rages, months apart and at first rather silent, I attributed to aftereffects of her abusive childhood environment.  However, it increased over the years to where she would curse in her rages.  She said her SF would curse.  I asked, "I didn't know he would use English?" and she replied, "No, in our native language."  I was stunned, "Then how do you use English curse words?"

After a decade of marriage and her being increasingly unhappy, I thought if we had a child she would be happier.  (Yes, it tempted disaster but at the time I was clueless and grasping a straws.)  So everything got worse after he was born.  My family and our friends were increasingly criticized and driven away.  By the time our child was three years old — her age when her abusive SF became a part of her family — she had already started comparing me with her abuser SF.

Maybe I could have addressed her issues and sought help years earlier but for a few reasons.  First, I was too embarrassed to seek help, for the first several years of marriage we were both religious volunteers.  Second, Her rages were at first subdued and months apart.  Like that frog slowly simmering in the cooking pot, it slowly got worse and I kept hoping during the calmer periods that the last outburst would be the last.  I was the persistent optimist.

In summary, I don't see her as having had Borderline or Paranoid PDs at first.  It seemed to develop with some traumas over the years where she lost a sense of trust or safety.  And having a child and then seeing me as a father, that put her over the edge.  I am convinced the child abuse she experienced set her up for disaster.

[Turkish]

When we were "friend" dating, I was driving us out of town.  Apropos of nothing, she stated, "with me, you'll get both heaven and hell." A  for sure. Silly me didn't ask her to expound upon that.  She was trouble from the beginning, to the spectacular and fascinating implosion at the end.  Even the end wasn't hell, however. Similarly, it was never heaven.  More like Purgatory. The record was three weeks before some blow-up over "something" even as innocuous as going to the mall two miles away. Typical was two weeks, so I always felt on edge, WOE.

Being my stoic self, the latchkey kid who was Parentified and possibly on the receiving end of some emotional incest from my mother who had BPD, Depression, PTSD, Anxiety, and was an auto-diagnosed bulimic at times, my survival tendencies were often invalidating to her: Spock- like logic and stoicism, and Larry The Cable Guy "Git 'Er Done!" practicality, minus the comedy.

The guy she left me for and married got heaven... then he got hell: two police calls, the fist involving an arrest and a beat down and a charge of resisting arrest, and DV (where she punched him hard enough to bruise her whole hand, she showed me two days later).  That he still wanted her after that blew my mind. 

She asked to come back three years later, not because she loved me, but to be with our kids full time, and to the safe and stable home we had which she fled to her new, better life, enabled by her friends most of whom didn't know what was really going on. 

So no, it was drama from the beginning. My part of it was that I was attracted to such drama from many women, as friends. Or quasi-romantic relationships in the past.  Happiness was my white whale. 

[Borderlined]

If you are a rare case of regretting it from the start, then there are 2 rare cases
I was a dumb kid. It felt good to be what I thought was loved. Actually I was and am lived I feel as much by someone with a personality disorder can love . For many many years I thought I was a bad person. Constantly hurting her with my thoughtless. Its been years of saying the wrong things and doubting my feelings. Yes moments if happiness but never true down to my soul happiness like the kind in Jason Aldenes songs. And only until the next episode. I actually thought thete was something wrong with my brain
A few therapy has awoken me. I read and have read books. I so tried to speak the language.  Perhaps I can't learn it or she speaks a different bpd dialect.  But it only gets worse. I'm very not happy

[dt9000]

The first few years of my marriage were happy, followed by a few years where things were up and down, then the last 10 years were a slow train wreck.

As I pull further away from my BPDex, I realize that there were red flags in those early, happy years. She faked a pregnancy for a few months, which prompted our engagement. There was constant drama and idealization/devaluation/discard with her friends, jobs, family and therapists. I was idealized during this time so I felt somewhat insulated from the chaos.

dt9000

[ForeverDad]

There were a few early red flags. While I was courting her she was devastated saying I had entertained a young woman (always part of a group, no dating) who 'warned' her about me.  Then after the wedding and before we left for the honeymoon a few mornings later she claimed that her back was broken.  She only relented when I was dialing for a doctor.  I never figured that one out until I learned of Personality Disorders.

[LeftBehindGuy]

 I was only married a year...and as you might imagine... it was never happy.  Things actually started going downhill very quick even at the wedding reception.  Less than 2 months later I was living a full blown nightmare.  I was fortunate that my ubpdxw chose to leave and move far away. 

[AskingWhy]

In retrospect, my husband was, all through the marriage, "married" to his mother.  It was a case of covert incest.

The mother was remarried, but treated her son like a husband. The cloying talk, the demands on his time.

I was seen as the mistress by my own mother-in-law.

I am still married (to my second uBPDH!) but it took about a year for me to suspect something was wrong, and that my H favored his adult children over me.  When they visited him (his uNPD X W had custody out of the state), I all but ceased to exist for my own H.  He was splitting, and looked right through me.

It's the holiday season now, and H is projecting his upset over his messed up FOO:  adult D on drugs, S homeless and on drugs, F is addicted to gambling.

[misterblister]

My uBPDw of ~20 years has said she's truly finished with me, so I think I can answer this.
In the early years I was happy around her, being energetic and sexually active together, sharing a similar sense of humor and purpose and hope for the future and settling down. I felt happy in that it felt OK and good to be around her while making memories with our children.
I don't think I was ever deeply in love, nor do I really know what "in love" even means at this point. When one is young, emotionally immature, and afire with hormones, it's hard to distinguish love from everything else.
As the years went on, I became increasingly disturbed by her behaviors, and I withdrew emotionally and mentally to maintain peace. It is very hard for me now to remember a happy time when I wasn't silently baffled by her behaviors, and I begin to wonder if that's a lapse of memory caused by too many subsequent layers of pain; or is it simply the reality?
To be fair to her, I am probably the type who would not end up being happily married until maybe the fourth or fifth try. In that sense my lack of self respect, my fears, and my poor self-confidence harmed both us of by dragging the marital corpse so far.
My biggest fear now aside from a messy divorce that damages my children, is how I will behave when I meet the first single woman who seems 20% more "normal" to me. I can only hope that my powerful fear hounds will have been retrained by then to bark at the right dangers.

[Longterm]

Looking back makes me cringe.

My ex gave me  from the get go. Wanting a baby within a week or so of being together. The first devalue and discard whilst pregnant, the next 2 pregnancies due to having contraceptives removed without my knowledge, the physical abuse, the self entitlement, I could go on.

It was kind of an unspoken law, if I pissed her off she would cheat, obviously my fault. The whole relationship was walking on eggshells.

Every year or so she would have her meltdowns, not knowing if she wanted to be a mother, being unhappy but not knowing why etc.

I honestly thought she was awesome, I saw her as someone who was incapable of looking after herself, someone who needed saving. To think it took almost 20yrs to realise something was wrong is shocking. I think it was 2016 that I realised and began looking at bipolar but it didnt seem to fit.

Through being away from her I realised I could still have a relationship with the kids, it has proven to be better than I thought and even when she came back I would not allow her to live with me. I like my independence now, and I still have the kids in my life. Life is drastically calmer and much more productive than it used to be.

I thought I was happy but I now see I was not.

LT.

[Rev]

If you are approaching the end of your marriage, or have ended it and look back, were you ever really happy, or did you sense something wrong that stuck with you?

This is a really great question - And the answer is "no".  In T I have even come to an understanding about why I stayed, even tho I saw and suppressed the first red flag a few months into  what was a five year relationship - one the I tried to leave four times.

Wow... NO! I was never really happy although there were exciting times which I mistook for happiness. I am thankful that it lasted only as long as it did - and I know that I followed a pattern in her life.

Boy - thanks for the question.

And for your own testimony.

Did me the world of good to read it.

Rev

[dt9000]

Longterm,

After reading your post, it's like we were married to the same woman. I can relate to everything you said. It took me 19 years to have enough and finally leave.

dt9000

[Longterm]

  After reading your post, it's like we were married to the same woman. I can relate to everything you said. It took me 19 years to have enough and finally leave.

I could go on, and I have.

I honestly believed I was happy, when she and I split I felt like my life had ended, that my heart had been ripped out, it was horrible,  brutal and its something I will never forget. To still want somebody that had treated me so poorly is maybe the thing that shocks me the most, it's scary when you think about it.

You can relate to it because we have all witnessed it and experienced it, somebody who has not been in a relationship like this simply doesn't understand, that's why I think we have all found one another.

LT.

[Rev]

I could go on, and I have.

I honestly believed I was happy, when she and I split I felt like my life had ended, that my heart had been ripped out, it was horrible,  brutal and its something I will never forget. To still want somebody that had treated me so poorly is maybe the thing that shocks me the most, it's scary when you think about it.

You can relate to it because we have all witnessed it and experienced it, somebody who has not been in a relationship like this simply doesn't understand, that's why I think we have all found one another.

LT.

Amen to this whole thing is all I'm gonna say.  Too, too true.

[MisterT]

SamwizeGamgee,

Man I felt like you are reading my mind. For me it’s No, I’ve never been happily married.

16 years marriage to uBPDw and I’ve known since day 1 this wasn’t right. On our wedding day I was in a panic, but I felt this sense of obligation and yes, making her happy, that pushed me.  It has been “all about her” for 16 years. A constant pursuit of what she wants and me trying to find the right combination of words, actions, gestures, etc. that might make her feel whole and happy for once. And when she doesn’t feel happiness - which she never does -  look out for the rages. She has no thought about me and my happiness or even our children unless it somehow reflects back on her.

And yes my 3 kids are my purpose in life and the reason I’ve stayed. And I’m torn - is it better to continue to raise them to see me stand by and enable someone who treats all of us so badly?  Or better to divorce her for a better life, but leave kids in her custody 1/2 time where they will certainly suffer and I can’t be here for them. Pros and cons to each after this many years and 3 kids.

My strategy was to wait until college - but 9 more years?

For anyone who has stayed with a BPD spouse and raised kids - how did you do it?

[SamwizeGamgee]

My wife is the more waif /passive aggressive, blackmail, withholding type, so unless I start something, there's not a lot of overt violence or arguing that is supposedly the more toxic environment for kids to be in.  If she was violent, dangerous, or just more combative, I'd feel like leaving was the proper thing, and the sooner the better.

However, when it looks to most folks that things are "okay" at home, and the kids might not be at risk of physical harm, I am confused about what is in their best interests.  I was planning to hang on, and stay married until the kids were older.  I was mostly trapped in marriage for the previous 22 years because the awfulness of marriage was, I thought, not as bad as the potential awfulness of divorce.  There's an old phrase that says the only thing worse than being married to her is being divorced from her - and it's fear that holds me in my place.  

Right now, I feel like I am running out of those "good reasons" to stay married and suffer.  Nothing caused this big change in mindset, it's just that I realize I'll suffer married, and divorced.  So, I might as well as be a man who can stand up straight and look himself in the eye and say he's true to his heart.  

Another thing that is pushing me towards divorce is that it would appear that my wife's behavior and attitudes were enough to cause my D18 to completely reject me (no contact for 2+ years).  If that's the case, I'm getting all the drawbacks of a toxic marriage _and_ all the drawbacks of being an alienated, divorced dad.  I might as well pick the one that lets me live my own truth - that truth being I stood up for myself.  Finally.

I'm sharing this only to describe where I am.  I know lots of people who stick with marriage under much worse conditions.  In fact, I have to spend a lot of effort to study out if I'm not the crazy one - trying to leave a marriage that outwardly appears manageable.

I'm getting tired of this status quo, and I think I'm imminently close to activating the divorce process -in spite of the potential damage. But, if she goes off the rails, it will sort of confirm that divorce was the best solution.

[ForeverDad]

And I’m torn - is it better to continue to raise them to see me stand by and enable someone who treats all of us so badly?  Or better to divorce her for a better life, but leave kids in her custody 1/2 time where they will certainly suffer and I can’t be here for them.

MisterT, not to detract from the topic here, ponder some perspectives...

First, you can't be there 100% of the time.  You have to sleep and probably you have to go off to work.  So even the way things are now, you can't be there all the time to referee her and the kids.

Second, if you have the kids half the time, then they will have all that time in a stable, consistent and caring home away from the chaos and unhealthy examples (spouse's acting out and you always trying to fix things).  Even when they're at school in neutral territory they will know they're returning to a safe place on a scheduled basis.

Right now their experience has been with discord and dysfunction.  But henceforth, seeing firsthand what proper parenting is like, they will know what is normal and be more likely to seek and develop normal relationships as they grow to be adults.

Your decision, your choice for your future.  Being more educated and more informed will help you make more confident decisions.

[SamwizeGamgee]

FD, good perspective.  

Another element to consider is that eventually, and I mean over the years, you will "lose" your kids anyway.  They will grow up and go on.  Us parents always hope that they will leave the nest and fly - and land on solid ground when they do.  But, even in less ideal circumstances, the kids will eventually be out on their own (or be adults living at home with you, in which case, you still have a much different relationship).  Graduations, marriages, college, jobs, adventures, sickness, and worse - all happen and change us when they do.  Kids as kids are temporary.  Of course, you are always a parent, and your children will always be a part of you, but, they will become adults.

I stayed married, and watch my D be programmed against me while living in the same house, still married.  I can only speculate what a divorce and separate house (even a minority of the time) could have done for D's emotional stability and health if it took place a few years before the real schism. At the risk of being over dramatic, your kids will leave you eventually. Consider the environment they will have before that takes place.

Given that, in the end, you have to live for you, because that's all you really have.

[PeteWitsend]

Add me to the "rare case of regretting it from the start" column!

I had seen enough red flags while we were dating to have known better.  But at the time, I attributed a lot of her issues to the place she was in... an immigrant in the US, living in a tenuous situation, extending her student visa by taking community college classes, borrowing money from friends for spending cash, with a constant fear everything might fall apart.  Then she'd have to go back to her country looking like a failure, after bragging to everyone back there how she was better than them, and was going to make it in America.

Yikes!

I proposed and immediately felt like I made a mistake... her behavior & conflict-prone nature didn't change, the source of the conflicts just shifted.  Instead of being generally hostile, and conflict prone about whether or not I was committed enough to her, she was now insisting I start taking care of all her immigration paperwork, helping her start her career, and getting upset if I didn't "jump" when she demanded.  I realized "marriage" was not going to be the answer I expected.  but a couple weeks before our wedding (we were doing a quick civil ceremony a couple weeks after I proposed so we could get a jump start on her immigration paperwork ) we found out she was pregnant.  I felt duty bound to see this thing out for our unborn child, and not call it off and leave her with a decision of whether to have the child or not, and stay in America, or leave.

During the next 5 1/2 years of marriage, sure there were good moments.  But even while I was having fun, or enjoying a moment of peace, I always knew it was only "a calm before a storm"... and the storms were far more frequent than I was comfortable with, and involved things that I couldn't change. 

So, no, I was never happily married.  I always knew I made a mistake, regretted the decision, and knew within a year or so that I couldn't be myself with her. 

[whirlpoollife]

I was married 27 years before I filed for divorce.
 I was flattered someone liked me yet I felt right away the marriage was not right. I think I was in denial that it wasn't .  I would always look at the good things , like I have a home , good health , so  don't complain...reality ..the home was a web , the more I tried to leave the more I got entangled and trapped. If I didn't move , remained still everything was ok.  My web cocoon became my normal. But my guard who watched over got hungrier though and soon I would be eaten.
Dead , gone , life done.  I needed to leave...the web was high... the fall deep. How scary to fall so far if I tried to escape!
As I cut myself free , my guard got angry. I was scared of his anger , easier to stay and hold the anger at bay.
I fell along way to the ground. I was sore I hurt I cried.
Pulling the pieces of web off took days. 
Do it or die I don't regret I'm alive.

( my answer of a couple of sentences  got carried away )